


Jagged

by Dalandel



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Doubt, Fingon's POV, Fingon's inner monologue is pretty wild, M/M, POV First Person, Pining, Premonition, Tender Sex, and themes related to Maedhros' state of mind after, post-Thangorodrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 14:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14672556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dalandel/pseuds/Dalandel
Summary: “Whatever you do,” I say, and he tilts his head, a drop of sweat or melted snow tracking down the jagged scar on his cheek, “do not leave me.”





	Jagged

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this around two years ago, and it's been languishing in my files holding out a vague hope that it'll one day see daylight. Today is that day. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Everything belongs to Tolkien except my own purple prose.  
> English is my second language.

As a young boy, I forgot all else while watching him. All my burdens – the amount or weight of them – his beauty, his radiance, ate it all away, leaving me with a warm feeling of anticipation for something,  _anything_ , and though I could not quite put my finger on it, I understood it was something large – something  _magnificent_. He could have stood next to a flaming star and my eyes would still have sought him, and mayhap somewhere beneath it all I wondered if loving him would burn me to ashes, so keenly I felt his eyes when they regarded me.

There was certain endearing wickedness in his smile, a truth in his gaze even when his lips slipped a little lie. There was grace in him I had no hope to match; I was the young cousin, the brazen little brat, though he never called me that way. Maybe his nearness brought out the best in me. I swelled with pride when I was compared to him. I wanted to be more like him, to be  _worthy_  of him. I made myself feel small looking up to him, left wanting for things I did not yet have names for.

So, I watched him.

I saw him struggle, though careful he was to hide it, to exhibit the only thing he thought our people expected of him: strength. He was meant to be always certain, evoke courage, protect those who looked to him for such. I admired his fortitude and wished to be as steadfast and strong one day. To me, nothing else was quite as real, quite as solid, and so I watched him with awed eyes and loved him with a transfixed heart…

But in this I was a young fool. I could not see that the end of my innocence would give ill fruit, that where I was headed pure-hearted would only perish, that there indeed are wounds I needed to accept ere I could think of becoming anything more than a mere pawn in our fathers’ game, on a board set by powers so much greater than either of us. Some of his scars would be caused by me; I never thought I would one day look into his eyes whilst he prayed for an end, for  _death_ , and my weakness would be both his escape and extended punishment. Never did I imagine myself looking into his eyes to see the shadow behind the light, nor did I expect to wonder at its origin during my weakest moments.  _What had I saved?_

***

 

But now I quell that question, for he needs to see that I still know him, that there are aspects in him other than his wounds and scars and injuries of spirit. My love is not tied to his wholeness, and yet perhaps, in some ways it is, but I have learned to put my hope in other things, to base my strength on myself, and on my allies. All I have, I use to remain calm during the nights I volunteer to look after him, to be at his beck and call, to… To make sure he does not harm himself. I try not to flinch as his terrors grip him, as his sunken eyes turn strange and unseeing. I dare not shout when his bony, twisted fingers dig into my skin, when he screams in tongues that make the small hairs in the back of my neck rise in muted fear. Still, I can afford hopelessness as much as he can afford idleness, and so I pull him out of his room as soon as his feet carry his too-slender weight, his macabre skeletal frame.

And more than anything it breaks my heart to see how he tries not to falter in front of me – his body betrays him as his will fails him. The one who once brightened the city of light now prefers himself unseen.

The one who has always been dearest and most beautiful to me now wishes to hide his face.

 

***

 

He grows stronger, and with his body the light within becomes brighter, and somehow sharper than I remembered. He is a patchwork of things old and new, shades of dusk and dawn stitched together with iron links here and silk thread there, and through the seams I witness heat so harrowing I wonder how he does not burn with it. Maybe he  _does_. Maybe, and quite probably, it is all that keeps him going. Vengeance. His tested will has tempered him. Dented he may be, but I struggle to think of anything deadlier.

Sometimes I find him frightening, and I know I am not the only one.

I watch him. The auburn flame of his growing hair can no longer compete with the fire in his eyes.

I watch him, and almost pity our enemies.

 

***

 

There is one thing I find nearly funny in this sorry, sad way – after all we have been through, I worry more and more if I will grow to truly regret my unsaid words. They have threatened to spill over more times than I can remember, but fear has kept them back, made me swallow them down with vehemence. Questions and doubts circle in a spinning dance within my dreams, and yet sometimes – sometimes I am so full of emotion I become brave again, my chest bold with intent. I await, hot within my own skin, for the right moment which then never comes – frigid wind blows me cold, and I end up walking the battlements in search of myself, the hollow sounds of my steps snatched away by the violent breeze.

Had I asked and had he said  _yes_  all those years ago – would we have endured the pains time brought upon us? Mayhap, just mayhap, everything could have been different. I will never know – my heart is heavy as the snows, but the thought of him does not leave me alone. And I – I am too old and weary to feel this ache renewed from my childhood. I wonder, though, if he ever thinks of me as I think of him, and the mere possibility makes me want to weep.

Are all not worthy of love?

 

***

 

Once again, I have stayed too long. I doubt, and familiar anxiety creeps into me, and I tarry another day with excuses even I realise poor. Smiling empty smiles, I wonder if I am worthy of my byname after all, but what is it that I have bidden myself to wait for?

Mayhap I wait for the emptiness thousand-fold worse should I lose my nerve this very day. In the act of strengthening my arm, have I neglected my heart? And – is it a boon I would ask for myself or one I would seek to grant, a weakness I look to succumb into or an asset I wish to add? What are these questions – do I not, a Prince for the Crown, have more confidence? Apparently not. The sight of him still makes me weak in the knees, after all these years.

I am pent-up with energy, muscles tightly coiled ropes beneath my garments, and in my desperate need for release I ask him to spar with me. He looks at me for a long while, and mayhap my wildness shows though he says nothing of it. Instead he picks up his blade, weighing it in his single hand. I can sense his curiosity, and for a reason or another I do not want to give him time to dwell upon his thoughts. I attack instead, and snow whines beneath our feet as we dance.

Moments pass in white blurs, our breaths steam and curl. No longer does he seem bent and distorted, and I wish to forever treasure this very image of him. I find myself wondering where one could lead his flame and yet see it prosper – but his flame would ever follow but what he has taken upon himself, and though I have known this to be true all along, the reality of it now grabs me tight with the brutal force of sudden premonition.

Breath catching in my throat, I step away from his range and throw away my sword, let the snow dampen the hollow clang. He stops, hard and magnificent, and I know not how snowflakes can endure the fire of his hair. They cling to him like diamonds, and the blush of chill and exertion on his cheeks summons a memory of summer’s blossom where I thought naught could exist. I stir for the beauty of him, break a little more for him.

“Findekáno,” he speaks my name, and though his face is hard like hewn stone there is question and softness in his voice, and I am unsure if he has even realised it, if he can still hear these things.

Saliva is hot in my mouth and I can taste a dash of iron in it, but my core is cold with the sense of dread and forewarning – I can almost  _feel_  the cold clutch of death grasping the threads of our lives, squeezing,  _squeezing_ …

He says my name again, and this time there is concern. I realise my face has probably turned ashen, and if I shiver it is not from the cold.

“Whatever you do,” I say, and he tilts his head, a drop of sweat or melted snow tracking down the jagged scar on his cheek, “do not leave me.” And I know not what makes me say those words, and where the sense is in them, but they stumble from my lips like shards of glass and leave me raw and aching, and he only watches me – mayhap wondering if my wits have finally left me. I easily memorise the frown of puzzlement bridging the gap between his silver-grey eyes and uneven, grim brows, and though I find myself cursing inwardly at his lack of comprehension, there is a grand part in me that wishes to smooth that frown with my lips.

“I would not,” he says at last, and while his voice is low and rasps when it once was soft and honeyed, it reminds me of a promise long-lost, forgotten, dropped by lips which were once full and red. “And if we are separated, I will fight to get back to your side. That much I can promise.”

I am left to wonder if he understands what he says, if his promise is any good in the face of larger things than one Elf, but I grasp at fool’s hope when such is offered. My love for him is not dependent on the legitimacy of his promises, and mayhap this is my flaw though I cannot make myself care, not now.

All the same, he walks with my heart inside his tortured chest.  _So careless, so careless…_

“Hold me,” I say, and cannot help the challenge in my voice. Perhaps it lives in the depths of my eyes and in the corners of my mouth as well, and I feel like these few feet between us are already laden with shards of my integrity and hope.

Bewilderment smoothes out the lines from his face. “What?”

The step I take rustles my frenzied heart. “Take me into your arms.”

For a moment I fear he says  _no_ , that he insists  _we are beyond such things_ , that I  _should not spoil myself with ill attachments a twist of events could easily shatter_ , that  _the time for such has long passed_ , that he considers himself  _too little_  and  _too broken_  to even stand in my presence, and all such harsh things he has harboured during his nights and days whilst succumbing to self-pity he nurtures in secret with too many cups of tangy wine ere stupor and sleep are all he knows.

But he puts away his blade and walks to me as though in a dream, and I can barely look at him as he draws his arms around my shoulders and presses my face against the furs of his cloak. Snowflakes melt from my breath, glistening drops sliding down the fuzzy silver hairs, and amidst all the winter and cold his exhalation is warm against the tip of my ear. Beneath the layers of cloth and leather he is solid and alive, and I am comforted betwixt his arms and his chest. I close my eyes and cling to him, forgetting myself but for what he is to me.

“Ai,” he says and laughs, and I realise I have sorely missed the gentle rumble of it, “I had forgotten what a  _fool_  you are.”

“I should remind you more often, then,” I say, and briefly sense his lips against the crown of my damp head, and maybe the smile is there too… I cannot be certain. “Though I daresay, you must be an oaf greater than I to –”

A loud and raucous murder of crows takes flight, black wings cutting the steel-grey skies, and I feel him tense for a moment – ever-vigilant even within the safety of his own walls. Still, he does not release me, though neither does he speak. In fact, he is holding his breath, his heart beating fast and heavy, and I despair.

“Am I asking too much?” I whisper, fearing for the fragility of it all too much to raise my voice, but he hears me like he always does. Standing back, he pulls off his glove with chipped teeth ere finding the curve of my cheek and cradling it in his callused palm like a… like a delicate, injured fledgling chirping its last. The surprising gentleness disarms me, and for all my resolve my eyes well up and I am about to make a bigger fool of myself. There is warmth in him, warmth like in a homey hearth, and I blame myself for forgetting, for thinking less of him – truly a wonderful heart he has, one to house all of this and the wailing spectres of the remnants of his ever-present pains. As he bends down and kisses my forehead, his tender warm breath against my fevered eyelids compels me to blink, expelling the blur from my gaze and wetting my cheeks in a shameful flood.

“No,” he answers, and combs stray hair away from my face, my locks drawing damp streaks in their wake. “You have asked me but to hold you, and the act itself is a delight to me. And yet you seem distraught.”

“Forgive me,” I murmur, my voice humourless and fingers numb in the folds of his cloak, the echo of his heartbeat now steadier against my knuckles. He regards me thoughtfully – his gaze is so heavy I witlessly shrink under it. Blinking, I shift in my place, reluctant to move but afraid of being shunned him. I should say something more – but I find I have no voice, stunted with fear as I am, with feelings too complicated and painful to be put into simple words.

He picks one of my hands free from the thick fabric and clutches it, looking at me with stern, haunted eyes, and somewhere there is that darkness I fear nothing can dispel – the ghost of the part of him I never managed to cut free.

“Come,” he says, and the tone of his voice finds my courage and puts it back into my chest.

 

***

 

He watches me.

This moment his eyes are dark; dark from questions and from many doubts, mayhap from desire, even – dark as my naked skin is luminous – but if anything is truly naked it is his gaze, all the scars laid bare there, offered in challenge that I would yet balk away and leave and prove his fears correct. He will never realise how beautiful he is to me – the mere word now spells mockery to him, I think, represents all that he has lost and all that he yet will.

I drown the room in dimness where but the starkest shadows survive, silhouettes with few shades of grey and blue, and he shifts uneasily on his bed, rustling the linens and breathing louder as if to create noise, to prove whatever might lurk in the corners of his very own bedchamber that he is not afraid, that he is ready to fight. This unbecoming act is something primal left in him, behaviour of some caged beast, and it moves me into mercy – to light a single candle. Mayhap better, this – I hope he shall see I am not repulsed by any bit of him. In this insufficient light his many scars create their own shadows, and his body is like uneven sand and crumbled paper, burns and old abrasions creating a mismatch pattern. I want to touch him.

I go to him, unhurried, my legs brushing his thighs as I insinuate myself into his lap – his long thighs are the most perfect seat, and I cannot help rolling my hips once, twice; he grips me, holds me down, holds me still, but does not push me away. In fact, he looks at us in a state of slow reverie, and I give him the time he needs. Not all parts of me are that patient, though – as he breathes in and out, the hard muscles of his stomach twitching with tension, my cock taps him, ruddy and hard and brazen. He stares at it, almost like he didn’t expect to find one of those between my legs, and I wonder if he is surprised by my desire. After a moment I guide his chin up with my fingers, wishing to meet his eyes – he shudders, his skin pebbling along his shoulders and arms. For a spell I am certain he will apologise – until he does not, but smoothes his hand down my thigh, holding my gaze as I hold his. He is not without fear, but his eyes have darkened into thundercloud grey and I feel his want simmer beneath the surface, pushing at him, pulling at him. He does not know what to do with it, and I do not want him to become frustrated with himself.

So I move again and he yields, albeit a little reluctantly at first, his thumb sinking into the groove of my thigh in a warning he might or might not intend. I run my hands up his chest, brushing back soft red hair until I reach his once-chiselled face. His breath huffs warm over my wrists as I let my fingers glide along the roughened edges and patchy, discoloured skin. His lips may not be so full now, but they are soft as I run a thumb over them, supple under my touch. He lets me do all this, and my heart clenches at how honoured I am.

Then he breathes my name, suddenly overwhelmed, and I must resist the urge to kiss him hard for it.

“I am not what I used to be, Findekáno.”

_No. You are more._

“Neither am I. Will you have me, regardless?”

He huffs with bemusement and lets go of my thigh to pet my arse instead – the gesture is almost patron-like, and he is clearly not at all impressed by my sudden, uninvited and amused grin. He goes to pull his hand away, but I drag it right back and only let go when his fingers press into my skin once more. Question passes between us, unanswered until I whisper, lips hot near his notched ear: “Keep your hand there and try to trust me. I promise, I will not mistreat you.”

Something in his eyes softens. “I know you would not.”

And we talk no more as I slowly explore the slopes of his cheeks, up to the gentle indentations of his temples. I massage him until he relaxes, my eyes never leaving his face – not even when he closes his and sighs, half-resigned to entertain my strange whims but also clearly grateful for the attention. When my movements come to a slow halt, he blinks his eyes open, expectant now just as I had wanted him to be.

I press his paper-thin eyelids closed with the pads of my thumbs, as gentle as a brush of a butterfly wing, and at his shivering breath, kiss his skin with gentle lips, nipping at the flickering lashes. Trust that I ask of him is grand, and I feel him battle his fears in the darkness where only my touch guides him towards the light still present in both of us. It licks at him under my questing fingertips, assaults him when I come across a scar. I sense the heat of his skin when I descend to the pulse on his neck, feel it quickening beneath my tongue. Revelling at the realness of it I mouth at him, and he tilts his head back and repays me with tiny muffled gasps and half-spoken endearments I have so long yearned to hear.

His stifled cry – as I finally snake a hand between us and grasp him – is both sweet and pained, but now his hips stutter a little and his right arm seeks to steady me when I begin to move with him, slow and careful. He bites his lip and tries not to claw at me too hard, but I am certain my ass bears welts from his nails and bruises from his callused fingertips. I do not mind – I will wear them, for him, and the thought excites me and makes me move faster, my hand picking up its pace along with my rolling hips. He curses, rough and low, drops his forehead against my collarbone, growls deep from his chest – he is lost, but this time  _not from me_.

I want to devour him.

And there, somewhere, breaks that young boy’s collection of fanciful dreams of coloured lights and silks and sweet pastries and gentle lulling harp music, but here, this – this is skin,  _his skin_ , and his  _fëa_  no matter how damaged, breath which hitches and voice that breaks, and I see that we are both different in so many ways, and I wonder – does it matter? He arches beauteously, giving me what he can, and it is enough. I will not ask for more, not in this life. To love lost possibilities is useless – it would serve only to betray us both. The smiling young prince is lost to me but for tiny glimpses at a time, and whilst I realise myself terribly,  _terribly_  selfish in this, to watch him now with his trembling lips and obediently closed eyes and surrender which comes at a great cost, I am pushed beyond those age-old fantasies. Never in my dreams was his skin this hot, his trust so precious.

And I go beyond all words and answer his unvoiced questions in the only satisfying way I know.

He shatters into shuddering breaths and clutches my hip so hard the crescent moons shall heal for many a day to come, but never have I felt quite so whole as I do at the sound of my own name from his lips there and then. Surrendering a step further at every syllable, I melt into him as though my own skin could mend his scars, cover the jagged memories running too deep into his very soul. The heat of joy ripples through me as he brings my face up for a kiss, and –  _yes_ – there is still so much of him left for me to protect, to cherish, to  _pleasure_  – in one way or another, mayhap – that I no longer have doubt enough to mention. There is still life in my beloved, and he services my lips with fervour I thought he had dedicated to other things in this new, damned life. I give myself leave to enjoy his attention, that hard-won strength – to love him through the threads of blood and friendship connecting us, weaving and binding what I can with gentle, deft fingers.

“What is this miracle you insist upon?” he utters when he finally opens his eyes, breathless, the fingers of his remaining hand slipping up to the back of my neck, tight but not enough so to hurt, and in the dimness of his chambers light is brightest in his eyes – almost strong enough to cover the darkness beneath. It still lingers and stretches like a string woven through him, persisting, insulting his very being. I would pluck it off if I could, but mayhap it would just cause all of him to unravel, to meet that death I once denied him.

I claim his mouth and kiss him until he relaxes, put all the dedication and love I can muster into the gesture, and feel the shiver of his body and soul as he finds me truthful. The quivering breaths he releases contain words which stumble against my lips, devoured by a greedy mouth that gives him little room.

“– Why now – why not before? Why not when I was… Do you – do you not think it better to –”

The candle flutters.

I breathe his name, let it ride the wave of the kiss, and he thaws with all his hurts and scars and is so warm, so  _warm_ , and it is all very nearly  _perfect_  – with the chill of winter shut outside our little haven, and the trapped air worshipped in the sanctuary of our mouths. He whines softly, broken with need and whole with reverence only one so lost and unfortunate could achieve.

I withdraw, and he stills, watching me – he beholds me, seeing me for the first time as his lover, as someone to keep and be kept by, and I feel my being alight under that stare; alive,  _alive_ , borrowing some of that warmth yet again, and all the troubles of the world seem to seep out along with his surrendering sigh.  _Never mind_ , it seems to say, and I find myself smiling as I bring our chests flush against each other, determined to savour the night, determined to give us both new memories; to show him how much he delights me. Oft I will remind him, if need be, that love blooms beneath skin

 

and beyond

 

and in between.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you [AndiiErestor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndiiErestor) for fixing my grammar and encouraging me, and [doodlebutt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doodlebutt/profile) for supporting my madness.


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